Member Info for SquirtyFlower

Not sure of the date, but be aware the AGM is conducted by phone call from an office in Guernsey. Non of the BOD attend in person - they just dial in. Making plans to attend would, frankly, be a complete and utter waste of your time and money. Just dial in yourself.

Aren't this the outfit who recently became a MM or is that some other org beginning with B?

More interesting perhaps is that BMO appear to have offices in many places - plenty in North America, 4 in China, 1 in London and absolutely none in South Africa. Maybe some UET/China tie-up being worked. Also wonder if price has been dropped to facilitate a placing, say 150m shares at, say, 30p....which would give the MMS another source of cheap shares for the short if there's a know share-flip merchant involved. I know we're making great EBITDA, but perhaps what is being worked is so big that it still needs a placing on top?

Looks like their increasingly desperate boss gave them a list of points to cover and told them to write them in their own words. The chances of two new posters coming on here and writing such similar lengthy posts seem slim to me. But what do I know other than BMN shares will be bought/sold for many upward multiples of the current share price by this time next year..........

Daisy, yes, there are at least 2 tangible advantages:

- any fund which tracks the AIM 50 or AIM 100 would be required to buy into BMN into whatever proportion of the index we make up
- some IIs/funds may have rules about only considering shares that are in AIM 50/100 (or above ...assuming FTSE is deemed above AIM). Once we appear in these indices, then we become eligible for purchase.

In South African mining, the Christmas/NY period is effectively a total shutdown for 2 weeks. Many workers travel long distances away from the mining zones to their families. Vametco will be no different (and wasn't last year).

Indeed, the pressure is on the ask even though Mr/Ms 50K is offloading like a bandit this morning.

Looks like the MMs are making a more aggressive effort this morning to walk the price down to get hold of the shares they need to close their shortfall. This suggests they now think/know news is about to land and need to bail from their position asap.

Block16 - no, if we are to release just one RNS this week then it must be the BE update because that has been committed for November. Missing a long-standing commitment would be poor.

Daisan, Sanchez - sorry I didn't make clear in my earlier post. I absolutely support the return of surplus cash to shareholders, but what I want to see is this done by dividends and dividends alone. Share buybacks just don't cut it for me. As a shareholder a dividend (especially when combined with a dividend policy) gives me a level of certainty - this amount per share on this date. No messing, no guessing, no hoping. Money in my pocket on a certain date to do as I please.

With a share buyback it is much more of a lottery as to when and what the benefit will be to me. The share price might rise in response, but the timing and level of response is more uncertain. Yes, the eps would go up all other things being equal, but whether the price responds in parallel is not guaranteed. There would probably be a share price boost on initial buyback announcement, but I soon think the daily/weekly/random RNS saying the company has bought back another x shares will lose impact and the buying would just get lost in the general day-to-day buying and selling. Then when the programme stops the whole world can see that a major buyer has just left the market for the time being at least.

So yes to dividends - ideally generous ones - no to buyback for me.

Share buybacks are almost never a reward for shareholders. The strong consensus of the investment community is they are one of the worst possible uses of 'spare' company money....a clear signal that a company has run out of better ideas on what to do with it's money. They're a poor message from large FTSE companies, but for an AIM producer that is going to turn in its first major profit in 2018 and is looking to massively expand over the coming years, then it would be truly terrible signal - one that would, at a stroke, obliterate our hopes of BMN commanding the higher PE premium of a tech company as it moves more into the energy storage business. I strongly hope BMN never, ever initiates a share buyback programme and if it did then I would see it as a clear warning signal to sell up most if not all of my shareholding as the company had run out of ideas and growth.

Buying seems to have ticked up a little in the last 20 mins or so. Not really surprising given the strong likelihood of a positive RNS between now and 8am on Monday.

So, is it alfa, nick, rob1967 or Golden Summit who have just loaded up 3 * 50K in the last 5 mins?

Alfa - unfortunately your budgie would have been wrong then. 50p - 20% = 40p not 42p.

1.8m shares traded in the first hour, with only a handful of trades above 50K in size. Looks very much like the MMs are just filling their coffers to fund their Christmas party and the brokers will be doing likewise with all those £10 trading commissions flooding in this morning.

coffeecups - no, it's not included because the 26% BEE requirement/holding is irrelevant to BMN shareholder numbers. It is only relevant to Bushveld Vametco.

Using the list of major shareholders (29 Sept) on the Bushveld Minerals company website together with the shareholder info provided on slide 53 of the 101 presentation last week which provides slightly different snapshots from end of Oct and 12th Nov and the Golden Summit RNS, we can determine the following:

- PIs hold approx 40% of the company assuming HL, Halifax, ii, Equiniti and AJ Bell holdings are all PIs.
- Directors hold approx 3%
- Acacia and Yellow Dragon hold approx 14% between them
- First Island held 3%
- Jose Borremeo and Family hold 3.5%
- IIs hold 5%
- Golden Summit hold 4.89%

If these are all mutually exclusive holdings, then it totals 73% of the company. Not sure who owns the rest - probably a mix of PIs using other brokers (e.g. Lloyds, HSBC, Charles Stanley etc), the major purchasers of the March 2018 financing, some Shard clients, perhaps one or two other major PIs who have remained below the radar.

We know First Island notified they held 33m on 1st Oct as it was RNS'd and in the list on the BMN website. However, this RNS also states that the holder was actually Pictet not FI directly. The 101 presentation list then says Pictet owned 11.3m shares (1.02%) on 31st Oct. Therefore I strongly suspect that there's some double-counting of shares if we regard FI and Pictet as separate entities. However, perhaps more significantly, if FI and Pictet holdings are actually the same, then it suggests they got rid of a further 22m shares during October as they've reduced from 33m to 11m.

So what does this mean?
- In terms of the potential takeover risk then PIs, the Directors, YD, Acacia and JB hold 60% of the company. To achieve a takeover, the bidder would need to take out at least 75% of the 40% PI holding (i.e. 30%+ of the company) plus all of the other 4. This would get them to about 50%. Are 75% of PIs going to sell up on the cheap? I strongly doubt it which means risk of takeover on the cheap is very low.

- Even if Acacia, YD and JB all wanted to sell then they only control 17%. I don't think they've any intention of selling up 'on the cheap' soon as I think they've been very supportive over the years so will want a very big payday.

- It looks like Golden Saint - and the second major buyer Alfa suggested yesterday - have been acquiring a mix of warrant shares and FI/Pictet shares. However they plus the other IIs only represent 10-12% of the company shares so even if they are in for a quick buck only and would sell up to any sort of takeover they aren't really a worry on their own.....and even if they linked up with Acacia, YD and JB then it's still less than 30%.

In summary, clearly there is a shift in/out between a couple of the larger shareholders (FI, GS and perhaps one other), but a) it isn't making much impression on the overall mix of shareholders and b) there appears to be no realistic prospect of a low-ball takeover offer getting anywhere near close to enough shares to succe

The link Serenus provided is the one people should go to for CGT info. A couple of specific things folks need to be aware of:

1) If you sold your ATM share allocation shortly after receiving it in Nov 2017 (or any time through to April 5th 2018), it will form part of your CGT calculation. The 'purchase' value of the ATM shares for CGT purposes will vary by individual because a) it is not zero b) it depends on the purchase cost of your BMN shares held at the time of the demerger. Technically it counts as a share reorganisation and there are more details and worked examples in the following HMRC document (which is updated for 2018 even though the URL says 2015!):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/share-reorganisations-company-takeovers-and-capital-gains-tax-hs285-self-assessment-helpsheet/hs285-share-reorganisations-company-takeovers-and-capital-gains-tax-2015

2) If you are registered for self-assessment AND the total value of all the trading account shares (plus any other eligible asset sales) you sold during tax year 2017-18 was more than £46,800 (i.e. 4 times your 2017-18 CGT allowance) then you still have to declare your gains/losses even if you don't have gains of more than the £11,700 allowance or have losses. This is documented in Serenus' links, but it is a criterion that many people who dabble in a few share sales here and there outside ISAs - and are already registered for SA - may be much less aware of.

3 tick ups - 2 on ask and 1 on bid - within last 4 trades.....

Agreed. They've got it near now so standby by for a tree shake to slam it down to 42/43p or below

As we all saw, there was plenty of buying at 50p yesterday. I suspect the MMs will have taken the view there will be a number of stop losses (real or mental stop losses) at the 45p level - a 10% drop - which they can pick up.